


the purest expression of grief

by ohmygodwhy



Series: little star chasers [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Brief homophobia, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Child Abuse, Gen, Late Night Conversations, M/M, Neurodiversity, Panic Attacks, Pre-Canon, Pre-Kerberos Mission, The X-Files References, first crushes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-16
Updated: 2017-04-02
Packaged: 2018-10-05 09:51:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 15,874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10303934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohmygodwhy/pseuds/ohmygodwhy
Summary: By the time he walks through the Garrison doors, he is bone from going hungry and muscle from fighting and stone from surviving. He keeps his guard up and his teeth bared and sleeps with his knife under his pillow and tears through their exams and their simulations with the ferocity of the need toknowmore, todomore, tofly.or: keith fights, because that's what he does, and has always watched the stars





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> i rewatched voltron w/ the bae in 2 sittings so I'm using my brief burst of hyperfixation to finish this blatant keith projection fic i started last month lol 
> 
> 1st time writing this boy so i hope i did him justice

 

One morning, when he’s six years old, his dad pours him a bowl of cereal, turns on his favorite Saturday morning cartoon, ruffles his hair, and tells him he’s headed to the grocery store and that he’ll be back soon.

These things should maybe have raised some red flags in his tiny head, because his dad rarely ruffled his hair, rarely poured him the cereal, and rarely went to the store early on Saturday mornings. He always said Sunday afternoons were the best time to shop. Those tiny red flags should have told him something was up, but he was six and he was tired and six year olds weren’t supposed to worry about these things.

He hears the sound of the door opening and shutting through the crunch of his Lucky Charms, hears the sound of his crappy old motorcycle riding away.

It’s the last time he hears that motorcycle, because morning becomes midday and midday becomes evening and night starts to fall and he’s still not back yet. He’s not back the next morning either, or the next.

He doesn’t come back. It takes Keith about a week to realize he isn’t coming back at all.

 

The first home isn’t so bad. It’s a group home, five kids plus him in a two-floor, four-bedroom house near a park and everything. Sometimes, at night, he’ll crawl over to the edge of the bed and bend so he can see out the single window in the room, see the sky, see the stars twinkling like they’re winking down at him. 

He likes the stars, he always has. He likes watching them flicker, he likes squinting his eyes and pretending he’s holding one between his fingers, he likes pretending that their twinkling is the stars trying to talk to him, likes imagining what it is they’re trying to say. 

He likes to think that mostly they’re trying to say “come up here”. He wishes he could twinkle back and say “I’m on my way”, even though he knows he’s not. 

He wants to be, though. He will be, someday. He doesn’t know why, but he knows he has to. There’s an empty space between his clavicle and the top of his ribcage and he needs something to fill it up—he has to go up to the stars like he needs to breathe.

He tells the lady who calls herself his mom but isn’t, because he’s never had a mom, that he’s going to be a pilot someday, he’s going to fly among the stars, go to Pluto maybe, or journey to whatever other planets are discovered before he’s old enough. 

She laughs and ruffles his hair and says “I’m sure you will, someday.”

 

The things he owns are: the clothes from his closet, a too-big jacket that was probably his dad’s, a book or two, and the knife with the wrapped up handle that he only managed to keep by stuffing it in the too-big jacket pocket and then wrapping himself up tight enough that nobody made him unwrap, just looked at him all sad and patted him on the head. 

He doesn’t put in his suitcase or his dresser drawer because he doesn’t want it to be found and taken away. He can’t let it be taken away because it’s his, it’s always been his. He doesn’t know where he got it but he knows that it’s his, the same way he knows he has to go to the stars.

It’s like a—a pull, somewhere deep in his chest, something that has him waking up with warm eyes in the middle of the night because he’s missing something but he doesn’t know what, he needs to go somewhere not here but he doesn’t know how. 

When he tries to explain this to the lady who calls himself his mother, she looks at him all sad and says she’s sorry about his father, sorry he had to go through that, but he’ll be happy here, she hopes—he doesn’t know what his father has to do with going to the stars? But it seems like he never knows these things, no matter how obvious they are after someone explains it to him, so. He stops trying to explain. 

 

The second home isn’t as good. 

The lady tells him to call him Mom when he’s comfortable with it—he doesn’t think he’ll ever be comfortable with it, but he doesn’t tell her that—and the man doesn’t say much of anything, just stares him down and takes a swig of his bottle every so often, like his dad used to late at night sometimes (“there’er things out there, Keith,” he would say, flipping through books and showing him pictures and gesturing in wide, clumsy arcs, “And they’ll come for us again someday—but you can’t tell anyone, not yet; the world isn’t ready— _that’s_ why the government keeps it a secret, see,” and on and on).

It’s just him, this time, alone with a woman who’s “always wanted a kid” and a man who probably has not. Keith doesn’t know if he wanted a wife, either, with the way he talks to her, the names he calls her. 

(He wonders if his dad, the one who’s gone now, ever talked to whoever his mom used to be the way this man talks to this woman. He hopes not, but realizes that’s a stupid thing to think because both of them are gone now so it doesn’t matter how they used to talk to each other.)

He hears yelling, sometimes, the mean, rough kind that he learns leads to yelps and crashes, because one night he hears yelling, followed by a sharp yelp and a crash.

When he creeps halfway down the stairs, the man is drunk enough that he can smell it from the staircase and the would-be mom is on the floor and her cheek is bleeding and the man looks so towering and angry that Keith makes some kind of sound—he must, because then they’re both looking at him, the woman scared and the man scary, angry still, and Keith is rooted in place. His heart races. 

“Keith, sweetie,” the mom says, breaking the silence carefully, “Go back up to bed, everything’s fine.” 

Keith’s heart keeps him frozen for one moment, Two, three.

He runs. Scrambles down the rest of the stairs and past the man who grabs at him, slams the door of the kitchen behind him and reaches for the phone on the dining room table with shaking hands. He gets in the 9 and the 1 before he’s being yanked away by the arm.

“Don’t you _dare_ ,” the man snarls, phone clacking against the floor, breath hot in Keith’s face. 

The mom is yelling, and the dad drops him in favor of turning back to her—to hit her again, Keith thinks vaguely, panicking, and so he grasps the man’s arm before he takes a step and digs his fingers into him and pulls, says “leave her alone,” as loud as he can make his voice go right now. 

The slap across his face leaves a stinging in his wake he wasn’t expecting, sends him crashing into a chair and sinking to his knees. 

There’s more yelling, but his ears are ringing so he can’t make any of it out, head and cheek throbbing, and all he can think is that maybe if he holds very very still, the ringing will stop and the yelling will stop and his heart will slow down and he won’t hurt so bad. 

A warm hand on his shoulder, small, and the mom says, “Go back up to bed sweetie,” again, gently, “I can handle this.” 

Despite his doubts (her hands are shaking), he nods dumbly, because he doesn’t want to get slapped again and he doesn’t want to hear them yelling anymore. 

They yell a lot and one day the man breaks his arm and the mom takes him to the hospital and the CPS is called and they come and take him away because the house is deemed Unfit For Children.The mom cries about it. The man doesn’t, doesn’t even get arrested or anything because he blames the arm on the mom. Keith hopes she gets away from him someday. 

 

The third home isn’t bad, but it’s not great, either. The fourth is horrible. He stops counting after the fifth. 

A woman who wouldn’t let him have dinner unless he told her loved her—which he didn’t, he’d just met her, how could he love her? A couple who wouldn’t pay a cent more than what they got in income, parents who really were kind enough but favored their own children more, older siblings who weren’t as nice, an older boy who’d watched him in the shower once, called him mean names, many many houses that weren’t home that all blurred together with how much they constantly changed. He even landed himself in one of those real-life church orphanages for a few months, until they found someone else to saddle him with.

The one thing that was constant was the change. The change, and the knife, and the stars. 

He goes back to that first group home a few times, the lady steadily growing older, more and more tired everyday, and the man never doing much other than swatting the backs of their heads and telling them to get their asses to school or to bed or to dinner, depending on what time of the day it is. 

He’s thirteen and stumbling through the hallway one morning, trying to pull on his jacket without dropping the books in his hands, thick and heavy. It’s still dark out, because he likes walking to school early so he has time to think, time to exist by himself for a few moments before the world wakes up. (It’s quiet—he likes the quiet, because everything is so loud all the time, and sometimes it’s. Too Much. He doesn’t know if other people ever feel like that, because no one ever seems to.)

When he sways his way into the kitchen, he drops the books heavily onto the kitchen table and turns to look for something quick to eat before he gets going. It’s a ten minute walk, and he likes walking there before the other kids get up. 

He doesn’t notice until a moment too late that the man who doesn’t do much but swat their heads is sitting at the table. He gets up early “because his of his job”, but he doesn’t actually leave until after everyone else leaves, so Keith never actually knows why he’s up this early. He doesn’t know a lot about this man, and doesn’t particularly want to. 

He grumbles loudly and pushes the books out of his way, dropping his coffee cup loudly in their place. Keith scans the contents of the fridge, frowning at the sharp clang of porcelain on wood. 

“‘A History of Spaceflight n’ Exploration’, huh?” he hears him drawl, voice slurred with sleep and mocking, “What, you gonna be a pilot or somethin’?”

Keith presses his lips together and doesn’t respond, just closes the fridge because he’s suddenly lost his appetite. 

“Hey, I asked you a damn question,” he hears, and tries not to roll his eyes.

“Yeah, I’m gonna be a pilot,” he says truthfully. 

“Yeah? And how’re you gonna do that?”

“Flight school, probably,” he answers flatly. 

He feels more than sees his smug grin drop into a scowl, “Nobody likes a smartass,” 

Keith, giving up on breakfast this morning, turn and swipes the books out from under his grabby hands, tucking them clumsily and closely under his thin arms, close to the empty space above his ribs.

“Well, nobody likes a dumbass, either,” he shoots back, and hurries out of the room before he has the chance to stand up and whack the back of his head again.

 

He’s surprisingly good at chemistry. He’s not all good with the little details of all the math equations, but he’s good at remembering what chemicals react in different ways with other chemicals, and seeing how all the numbers and equations apply to real life is pretty cool—he’s always been better with the physical sciences than theoretical stuff anyways.

He’s staying with that couple that doesn’t pay anything more than what they have to, so his clothes are used and his textbook is a school copy, but that’s okay because he’s doing good this year, with his grades and his behavior—when lights are getting too bright it’s not polite to tell the teacher to _please be a little quieter_ ; when older boys crowd you at lunch to try to take your shit, _you_ get in trouble for throwing applesauce at them when you didn’t even start anything. 

He hasn’t gotten in trouble for throwing shit in a while now, and he’s studying up in the room they gave him, a nice little bed he’d pushed into the corner near the window. He’s focused on it, too, the way he gets when he’s invested, when he’s interested and not doing it because he has to, and so he doesn’t hear the stomping up the stairs until his door is flying open so hard it knocks on the wall behind it.

He startles hard, looks up to see the man with the Generic White Christian Guy Name he keeps forgetting stomping towards him with some kind of purpose. The book falls shut between his legs and he holds it up on instinct, a tiny shield that the man yanks away easily, harshly—and Keith’s never seen him like this before; he doesn't drink and hardly yells and doesn’t seem like he’s ever thrown a punch or taken a hit in his life. 

He very much looks like he could throw a punch right now—grabs Keith by the arm and then, when he tries to pull back, reaches up and actually yanks him by the fucking hair. Keith yelps, grabbing at the man’s wrist as he pulls him off the bed.

“I didn’t— _ow_ —I didn’t do anything,” he’s saying, but the man is just glaring something awful.

“I heard you’ve been _busy_ after school lately,” he says, threateningly calm, like the air right before a clap of thunder, and Keith freezes, because—well, there’s this boy on the track team, right, and he has these very nice eyes, dark like coffee right as it’s poured into your mug, and Keith decided to tell him one day when he saw the boy looking at him after school—pure impulse, because that’s how he does everything—and kissing him made probably a hundred things fall into place because he’d never felt anything like that thinking about any girl, and then, “Is that true?”

Keith swallows. Must be silent for too long, something must show on his face, in the way he can’t meet that intense intense gaze. The hand in his hair tightens and then _twists—_ Keith cries out, and then he’s being pulled down the stairs, flailing, grabbing at the rail and saying wait wait I’m sorry I won’t do it again if you don’t want _ow ow ow—_

The woman who said he didn’t have to call her Mom if he didn’t want to has a hand over her chest and is resolutely not looking at him.

The sound of the front door opening, and Keith is literally being tossed outside by his goddamn hair. He tries to keep his balance, but lands hard on his hands and one knee. 

He hears the man’s voice more than what he’s saying—something about God and _all gays are going to hell_ and _not in my house,_ probably, he can’t tell, the thing his brain latches onto is the _‘you’re leaving tomorrow morning’._

He’s heard the other stuff before, of course, around every other corner. And that last thing, right before the door slams shut, shouldn’t hit him as hard as it does. It’s not new.

But he’s just. He’s been doing so good. He’s been trying. He was gonna get a goddamn A. 

He breathes heavy, heart racing and racing and scalp stinging and maybe eyes stinging too, a ringing in his ears from hitting the pavement too hard. The ground is cool against his knees, the thin sweatpants not helping much. He left his book upstairs.

He wonders, vaguely, if they’re really gonna go all out and leave him out here all night, if the social worker who shows up to take his ass back will walk up to him sleeping on the goddamn porch the next morning.

He left his book upstairs. Doesn’t matter very much at this point—he’s not gonna be here to pass the text next week. He’s not gonna get to kiss that boy again. He’s pretty hung up on that, even though he just got dragged down the stairs because of it. 

He doesn’t care. It was just a little bit of kissing. He doesn’t see what the big deal is. He was gonna get a goddamn A.

 

“Do you know why you’re here right now, Keith?” the headmistress asks, hair combed meticulously, hands folded carefully on her desk. 

“No,” he answers. Wipes his nose with the back of his hand. It comes back red again, so he presses the paper towels they gave him to his nose and ignores the urge to tilt his head back a little.

“This is the third fight you’ve gotten into this month,” she says, like it’s obvious. The middle aged woman next to him nods gravely, hands folded in her lap the same way. He wonders if it’s an adult thing.

“He hit me first,” Keith says. 

“And you hit him back,” the headmistress responds which— _yes_.

“Yes,” he agrees, “because he was gonna do it again, and he had friends.” he sniffs, the sharp tang of copper in the back of his throat, “I don’t understand why I’m in trouble.” 

The headmistress sighs, like this conversation is a great burden on her, “Violence is never the answer, Keith. Hitting back makes you just as bad as the bully.”

He frowns, because no it doesn’t?? Hitting back means you’re finally doing something. Hitting back means you’re not going to be the one pushed down the stairs anymore.

“What would you have wanted me to do?” he asks instead of contradicting her, because his head already hurts and he doesn’t wanna spend an extra five minutes listening to someone talk about talking back.

The headmistress shrugs, “Go find a teacher, go to the nurse. Let us deal with the bullies. Ignore them.”

Keith blinks; he doesn’t think this woman has ever gotten into a fight a day in her life, “I couldn’t do that.”

“I appreciate your need to take action,” she speaks slowly, like she’s talking to a five year old, and it makes Keith’s skin itch, “but you still should have found a teacher.”

“No, I couldn’t _do_ that,” he says again, aggravated and annoyed, “There were _five_ of them. You ever been cornered by five boys who wanna beat the shit out of you—?”

_“Keith,”_

_“What?”_

The lady next to him looks and sounds scandalized, like she’s never heard a swear word in her 45 years, “You do _not_ speak to your teachers that way,”

“The headmistress isn’t my teacher,” he says, which makes her look even more scandalized. 

“You still have to treat her with respect,” she says sharply.

“I am,” he’s confused, “I’m just trying to explain—“ 

“There’s nothing to explain,” she interrupts him; he’s so so tired of people interrupting him, “You shouldn’t have started that fight—“

“I _didn’t_ start it,” louder than he meant to, the tang of copper choking him, but it’s the volume and not the words that matter, and he knows he’s lost this fight. No one listens once you start yelling, but he can never seem to hold it in, because no one listens when he _doesn’t_ yell, either. 

He’s so tired of people not listening. 

(He _does_ start the next fight, because some asshole boy said something bad about the mother he never knew and the lady was one more Incident away from sending him back and he hates this school anyways, so it’s not like it’s that big of a loss.)

 

He heard about The Galaxy Garrison on TV when he was around eleven, maybe twelve, thirteen, right around the time he realized that flying could get him closer to the stars. 

If flying could get him closer, he thought, flying into _space_ could _get_ him there. The Garrison could get him there. 

Whenever it was on the news, the man in the group home would complain about _good tax dollars going to a sketchy organization that hardly actually sent people into space_ —“what’s the point of a space program,” he’d say, “that only sends people into space every few years? The hell are they doing with the rest of the money?”

“It’s a _school,_ too,” Keith pointed out once, on the far side of the couch so his head wouldn’t be swatted, “It takes money to teach people _how_ to go up there.” 

The man had scoffed, “It’s a waste of good money—there’s nothin’ out there anyway.”

“There might be,” Keith had said on instinct, defending the smell of alcohol and old cereal and blinds drawn up tight, “I think it’s really cool, going into space.” 

“You think anyone gives a damn about what you think?” he hadn’t even looked up from the TV as he spoke. “You ain’t ever gonna be anything bigger than this, kiddo, so you better get used to it.”

Keith never ‘gets used to it’. He tries to, for a while, tries to imagine what the hell he could do with his life if he shut up and settled down and went to some college, tried to imagine what it would be like to live with that empty space for the rest of his life. 

He finds out that once you pay admission the first time and get high enough scores on their tests, tuition is free.

He decides that he’s going to pass those goddamn tests. 

 

It’s hard, learning to balance studying stuff outside of his actual school curriculum and actually studying for school—he has to have okay grades to get considered in the first place, so he can’t just drop out, as much as he wants to. But he learns—he adapts quickly, because he’s good at that, and because he _wants_ this, he wants to get into the Garrison so badly, maybe more than he’s wanted anything. 

He gets a part time job during the summer, and then another one a few weeks later, and he keeps reading and trying to decipher all the terminology and annoying theoretical math side of things—he hopes some parts of the exams are maybe demonstrational? He can talk about some of these things but he’s not sure if he can explain them on paper? He’ll just have to do it, either way, because he is _not_ failing these exams. He’s not.

He needs his guardian’s signatures. The couple he’s staying with aren’t too keen on the idea at first, don’t wanna have to work out a bunch of technical details or fill out forms or pay for ‘some fancy space school’. 

He swallows down his panic and says that he can handle admission, that they won’t have to pay a dime if he scores high, that he has most of the paperwork handled already. He can be out of their hair until he turns eighteen, and then they won’t have to worry about a thing. It’s very easy to get them to sign a few papers after that.

He fills out every form very carefully, practices writing them out nicely a few times before even touching the actual documents. It turns out there’s a better chance of them accepting him as a foster kid—they love to ‘promote diversity in all it’s forms’. He guesses that includes kids with big families and kids with none.

He takes three buses and walks for a solid hour in-between the first and second to go actually take the tests. 

He tears through them with a hungry vengeance, ignoring the looks some kids shoots him when he finishes quickly, and takes three buses and an hour-long back home to wait for the results.

He gets his acceptance letter for the next school year two weeks later, and is so happy he maybe even cries a little.

 

By the time he walks through the Garrison doors, he is bone from going hungry and muscle from fighting and stone from surviving, something uncommon and different from all these other students, all these other people. He keeps his guard up and his teeth bared and sleeps with his knife under his pillow and tears through their exams and their simulations with the ferocity of the need to _know_ more, to _do_ more, to _fly_ —and he’s. 

He’s _good_ at it. He sits in the pilot’s seat for the first time, let his hands roam the controls, leans back, and feels comfortable in his own skin. Bumpy at first, fumbling from the novelty of it all, smoothing out quickly as the levers become part of his body and the seat welcomes him home. 

He’s good at it, walks out of the simulator feeling dazed and satisfied like he’s just woken up from a wonderful dream, sees the instructor and the other students just _looking_ at him. Looking at his scores flashing on the screen behind him. 

_Record breaking,_ the instructor says, and creates a wall between him and the other students. He is someone to beat, now. He is not a possible friend now, but.

He’s good at it. 

He’s so so good at it and he’s going to make it up there and he’s finally going to find out why he needs to so badly, finally going to see where the pull leads him, finally going to fill up that empty space right beneath his clavicle. 

The pull isn’t normal, he finds out. The other cadets want to go into space, of course—it’s why they’re here in the first place—but they don’t _need_ to like he does, they don’t feel like they’ll die if they don’t make it. They don’t try hard enough—he crashes simulators because they don’t _care_ enough, it isn’t real enough to them.

When he says he’d be better off flying by himself, says he’s _good enough_ to fly by himself, because he _is_ and they know it, they call him arrogant and rude—but that doesn’t matter, they don’t understand, all that matters is getting to the stars.

When they send him to the Pride and Joy of The Garrison™ to help “straighten him out” (“maybe you’ll learn something from a fellow ace pilot”) he tells him so. 

_Takashi Shirogane,_ the Pride and Joy introduces himself as, but Keith already knows, of course he already knows—he is the Pride and Joy of The Garrison™, top of the class, ace pilot, the Real Deal. Going to make history, he’s heard the teachers say, heard the students say; he stands in front of him, with his crisp uniform and that single stupid fluff of hair and a too-genuine smile, and of course Keith knows who he is— _But you can call me Shiro._

“You’re a skilled pilot,” he says later, when the two of them are all cozy (Keith is on edge, tense in his seat and trying very hard not to look it; he doesn’t think he quite pulls it off with the way Shirogane eyes his shoulders) in Shirogane’s room, “I’ve heard you’ve broken quite a few of the simulator records—even some of my own.”

(Keith wonders if that bothers him; he wonders if he’s bothered by a foster freshman beating his famed records. Keith is a little bothered by it, if only because _he_ did it. Him, and no one else.)

“But,” he continues, “I’ve also heard you’ve got a bit of an attitude problem—don’t work well with others, lower scores on group simulations. You’re a good pilot, but that means nothing if you can’t lead your team.” 

Keith frowns, because he knows that, because he’s been told before—“I’ve been told all this before,” he says, keeping his voice level enough that Shirogane won’t think he’s talking back, “I don’t see what you want me to do about it.”

Shirogane looks a little surprised, like he’s not used to people talking back to him; Pride And Joys never are. He shakes it off and shrugs, “Hold back a little?” a pause, “People don’t like it when someone else is better at something then they are.”

“Speaking from experience?” he asks, and can’t bring himself to regret, but the other boy just grins vaguely and says “Yeah, I am. Holding back a little makes you less intimidating. It could make it easier to work as a group.” 

Keith’s frown deepens. “I’m not showing off,” he says, “I’m just flying. It’s not my fault if they can’t fly as good.”

Shirogane opens his mouth to say something else, but “Look,” Keith cuts him off, “I’m okay at math, but I miss the details. I like reading but I’m bad at ‘ _articulating concepts_ ’. I’ve never been good at anything before,” he swallows, looks him in the eye, wants him to _know_ because this is suddenly so important, and if Shirogane doesn’t understand he doesn’t think anyone ever will, “And now I am. And I’m not just good, I’m _great._ I can do it, and I can do it well—and that hasn’t ever happened before.” 

“So,” he pauses, because this feels like something he shouldn’t say because it leaves him too open, but he needs to say it anyways, “I don’t think I should have to pretend not to be as good as I am to make other people _feel better,_ when every other time, other people have no problem telling me _exactly_ what I’m doing wrong,” he stands, because he doesn’t think he can be in this room with this boy for very much longer, “I’m not going to apologize for finally being good at something.”

Shirogane looks surprised again, a little taken aback, a little something that looks uncomfortably close to understanding. Keith hopes this is the first time a first year has talked to him like this as he walks out of the room. 

He’s always loved dramatic exits, thinks he pulled this one off pretty well.

 

They're supposed to meet up after morning classes the next day for some more mentoring bullshit or something. Keith doesn’t think Shirogane will show—probably tell the teachers that Keith was Impossible To Teach and get to mentor someone else. So he goes to lunch first, eats slow and reads a little and then finds himself walking to the place they were supposed to meet up—a bench in the courtyard.

There is going to be an empty bench, and maybe he’ll sit there to read until his next class starts, just to be petty about it. 

Shirogane is sitting on the bench. 

He’s bent over some textbook or something, legs stretched out like he’s saving a seat for someone. Keith was supposed to show up at least an hour ago. The guy doesn’t even look that bored—looks like he belongs there, even, like of course he belongs there, where else would he be?

Shirogane looks up, catches his eye. His face is unreadable when he raises an eyebrow.

“You’re late,” he says, and Keith feels like an asshole. 

His throat feels dry, heart racing like that first time on the staircase. 

“I—“ he says, and stops. Shirogane gestures for him to sit down next to him. Keith sits.

“Did you forget the time?” he asks, not unkindly, necessarily. Keith shakes his head, doesn’t look at him. 

“I’m not—“ he tries again, folding his hands in his lap, and then unfolding them, “I’m not trying to be an asshole. I just—well, I kinda thought you wouldn’t show up?” 

He risks a glance over. Shirogane blinks. “Why would I not show up?”

Keith flushes; these things always sound so obvious when someone else says them. Maybe he’d read the situation wrong? He does that; he does that a lot. He thinks vaguely that he should get better about that, probably.

For now, he just shrugs. “I mean—well I wasn’t exactly a ‘good subordinate’ yesterday. And I guess I thought—you’d rather not have to deal with me? Because that’s what happens, you know?” he tries to explain as best he can, because he isn’t stupid: he can’t imagine anyone not wanting to deal with the boy he’s talking to, “It’d be easier, probably—attitude problem, right?”

He feels Shirogane just look at him for a long moment. People do that a lot here: look at him. He doesn’t like it very much. 

“Actually,” he says after that long moment is over, “yesterday was pretty good—I think I misjudged you, before. You’re more like me than I thought. Plus,” he smiles, “I don’t give up that easy.” 

It’s Keith’s turn to just look. 

“Me too,” he manages— _I misjudged you_ , is what he doesn’t say, and _I don’t give up, either_ , because he doesn't know if he can right now, and hopes Shirogane understands. 

From his faintly pleased smile, Keith thinks that maybe he does. 

 

It’s later, months later, a Friday night probably, and he and Shiro have spent the past few hours trying to knock each other over and not be knocked over. Shiro’s been doing more of the knocking over—Keith’s back stings from hitting the mat too many times—but Keith’s faster, and he’s getting better. 

He still isn’t sure why the Pride and Joy of The Garrison™ doesn’t seem to have anything better to do on his Friday nights, but Keith isn’t about to ask—it’s…nice, these evenings. They’re nice. 

It’s early spring by now, which doesn’t mean much out here in the desert—the nights are still chilly, but the days are getting hotter and hotter. It’s chilly right now, when he pulls his sweaty shirt off and the air hits his skin, and he shivers a little.

It had taken him awhile to get comfortable changing in the locker room—and even now he doesn’t bother when it’s crowded. Right now, though, it’s fine—he’s fine, he can breathe deep and content and barely worry about a thing. His head is clear. 

“Y’know,” Shiro says absently, pulling a thin white shirt over his shoulders, “I never asked why you decided to come—to the Garrison, I mean.” 

Other days, Keith might not want to talk about these things, but right now his head is clear and things are alright, and it’s Shiro asking—he always seems to know when he’s more willing and able to talk and when he’s not.

“I don’t know,” Keith shrugs, but not in a dismissive way. “I just,” he pauses, “nah, you’ll laugh at me.” 

Shiro shoots him A Look from where he’s tying his shoes. “I’ll only laugh if it’s funny,” he says somberly, betrayed by the tilt of his smile. It had been weird, learning that the Real Deal was only serious about half the time, and most of that time was spent in class or being all impressive in front of other students. 

The guy has a Star Wars poster up in his room—got all offended when Keith said he’d only ever seen the prequels. In Keith’s defense, the nuns had preferred Star Trek. Shiro had laughed out loud when Keith had said that, like he’d told the best joke he’d heard in ages. Keith hadn’t known someone like Shiro could laugh like that. It was nice.

Keith sits on the bench to pull his own shoes, and rolls his eyes. Pauses to consider how the hell to actually explain it??? He hasn’t tried in years, not since it was mistaken for debatable childhood abandonment issues. 

“So it’s like,” he takes a breath, tucks the laces into the shoe so he can learn back on his hands, “I dunno, it’s like this _feeling,_ right. Like I look up at the stars, and know I have to be up there, as stupid as that sounds. And it’s…it’s not a want, it’s a _need_ , it’s—a pull, I guess? I _need_ to get up there like I need to _breathe,_ y’know?”

He looks up to see Shiro looking at him, head tilted, a thoughtful little smile on his face.

“Yeah,” he says after a moment, “I think I do.” 

Keith smiles back.

 

Shiro gets selected for the Kerberos mission, tells Keith three days before they’re going to announce it, up on the roof where they’re not supposed to be. The Golden Boy is a rule breaker—Keith doesn’t know if that’s always been true, or if he’s just a bad influence. 

He ignores the sinking feeling in his chest and focuses on the nervous curve of Shiro’s smile. There’s an empty space between his clavicle and the top of his ribcage, and sometimes he thinks one of Shiro’s smiles is so bright that it could fill it up forever, even before he reaches the stars. He wonders if he’s one of the first people Shiro’s told, and selfishly hopes so.

He tells Shiro to say hi to the stars for him, and not to meet any aliens until he makes it up there. 

 

They tell him, ‘Mission Failure’ and ‘Pilot Error’ and it’s complete bullshit—they know it’s complete bullshit and they stand up there on every news station and say it anyways. 

It’s complete bullshit so he sneaks into Iverson’s office and there’s zero footage of any pilot error, there’s barely any footage of anything. 

It’s complete bullshit so he bursts into Iverson’s office the next day and stomps right up to his desk and says “This is complete bullshit,” before the asshole can even ask what he’s doing. 

“What do you think you’re—?”

“It’s _bullshit,_ ” he repeats, “There was no ‘pilot error’—Shiro was the _best_ pilot you had, you _know_ he wouldn’t mess this up.”

“Even good pilots make mistakes, _cadet_ ,” he snaps, trying to gain the upper hand, but Keith won’t let him this time.

“There’s _no footage_ of any pilot error. You don’t even know what happened to them, do you? You’re trying to cover up your own—“

“You have no idea what you’re—“

“You’re _lying!_ ” he cuts in, flinging an arm out, and then that arm is being grabbed, manhandled behind his back, “What—?“

“Attempting to attack a senior officer,” Iverson says coolly, holding onto his composure by a thread, “is punishable by immediate expulsion.” 

Any retort Keith had ready vanishes. The couple who gave their signatures moved out of the country, leaving their guardianship over him to the Garrison. He goes very still. 

“I’m too old, the home won’t take me back.” he says slowly, “I don’t have anywhere to go.”

“Not my problem,” Iverson snaps.

He doesn’t even have the decency to look him in the eye as he’s lead away, so Keith kicks a chair over just because he can, and hopes the skid across the floor is permanent. 

 

When he was six years old, it took him a week to realize his dad wasn’t coming back. It was a bad week—confused, scared but trying not to be. Once it hit him, he’d had no idea what to do. What do you do when you’re suddenly alone? 

He walks out of the Garrison with his head held high and his knife in his pocket, and feels like he’s six years old all over again. 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comments make flowers grow and keep me young and radiant


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He settles into the Red Lion’s pilot seat, hands grazing over the controls, and feels that empty space above his ribcage open up and let her in, let her pick at him and deem him maybe-worthy and make herself comfortable. It feels like he’s waited years for this—maybe he has, he thinks, maybe this is what has been pulling him up here for so long. 
> 
> His knife stays heavy in his pocket, and he still isn’t sure.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this turned into a monster of a chapter bc there's so much to explore in the actual show rip but here i finally am
> 
> also dude i can't believe i forgot to add in the iconic 'patience yields focus' line??? but anyways this one is called: keith becomes friends w/ everyone bc that boy deserves some good friendship u feel

 

 

So he’s in space now, and Shiro is back, and aliens exist for real so maybe the dad he doesn’t know anymore was actually onto something. 

(The pull had brought him to the desert, to that little old shack he and Shiro had found one night on their way back to the Garrison from the town a few miles away. They’d gotten lost—it had been Shiro’s fault, probably, because he was a great pilot but he was actually shit at staying on course in the dark. Thinking about the way Shiro laughed under the same stars he was lost in made Keith’s stomach hurt, so he tried not to. 

The pull had him sleeping during the day and venturing out at night, exploring caves and cliffs and shit that would’ve had the dad he doesn’t know anymore waving his hands around in those wide clumsy arcs of his. He pinned pictures of carvings onto the wall like he’d seen on TV, focused solely on figuring out what the hell it all was so that he didn’t have to think about anything else. 

Time had slid by—there was so much of it now that there weren’t any classes to get to or tests to study for or even new homes to get sent to. He had been alone for most of his life, but out in the desert, he’d realized how _used_ to it he had gotten. And how little he had now that Shiro and The Garrison were out of his life.

One night, something had fallen from the sky. He had pulled his shoes on, jumped on his bike, punched a few Garrison doctors, and found Shiro.)

He’s in space now, and there are huge alien robot cats—lions, the princess says again and again—that all come together to form one big robot? It’s kind of vague, the way she explained it—and anyways, how do lions even _become_ arms and legs and heads? 

He almost stops to ask, but everything is moving so quickly, everyone—other cadets that showed up out in the desert and decided to go out into space instead of back to their dorms—sent off in different directions to find those Alien Robot Lions.

No one knows exactly where _Keith’s_ Alien Robot Lion is right now, so he’s stuck waiting in the castle with their Brand New Alien Friends, arms crossed and foot tapping because Shiro is back and now he’s off again and who says they should trust these new aliens so quickly anyway? How do they know they aren’t the ones planning to do horrible things with— _Voltron?_ he thinks, a name like something out of those cartoons he used to watch—and now he’s way off track, hands clenching and unclenching in anxiety.

Technically, he’s still not among the starts quite yet.

“It’s Keith, right?” he hears suddenly, snapping him out of his thoughts. 

He’d watched E.T. once, with Sister Teresa, late at night when he couldn’t sleep and neither could she. As much as he liked space, liked wondering what was out there, the movie had _freaked_ him out. He’d spent the next week constantly checking the closet for anything that even looked like the puppet they had used to bring the alien to life. He looks up to see Princess Allura looking back at him, and thinks vaguely that he’s grateful she doesn’t look like E.T. 

“Uh—yeah,” he says. Swallows. 

Allura nods, “Tell me, Keith, what are humans like?” when he just blinks at her, she specifies, “I mean—well, I’d never even heard of Earth, before this. The Galra—they’ve caused so much devastation. I need to know if humans are better than that, or if—if they would do the same if they could.” 

He blinks again, looks around at this empty empty castle, and understands.

“I can’t speak for, y’know, _all_ of us,” he says slowly, trying his best not to look away from her piercing gaze, “but I’m pretty sure we—me and Shiro and the others—aren’t like them—the Galra, I mean. Not that I know much about them,” he adds quickly when the princess raises an eyebrow, “and humans have done some pretty awful things, too—mainly to each other—but I,” he pauses; thinks, “I think we can try to do some good, if you’ll give us a chance. We can try.”

Allura looks at him for a moment, as if weighing his honesty.

“Yes,” she agrees, “I think you can.”

 

He settles into the Red Lion’s pilot seat, hands grazing over the controls, and feels that empty space above his ribcage open up and let her in, let her pick at him and deem him maybe-worthy and make herself comfortable. 

It should feel odd—it’s a _giant robot space lion_ —but it doesn’t. It feels like he’s waited years for this—maybe he has, he thinks, maybe this is what has been pulling him up here for so long. 

His knife stays heavy in his pocket, and he still isn’t sure.

 

The other Paladins are…a lot. 

Keith remembers the cadets, vaguely—cargo pilot, mechanic maybe, something to do with computers? He’s never been good at remembering faces he didn’t have to—bad at matching faces to names, too, unfortunately, which always made people upset when he couldn’t remember their name. 

Lance is loud where Keith is quiet, in people’s personal space where Keith stays out of it, laughing where Keith does not, egging Keith on when he doesn’t think he’s really done anything to merit a fight? But he fights back anyways, because that’s what he does, that’s what Lance makes him want to do—he’ll say shit like _are you getting scared?_ while they’re nosediving straight into the ground, and so of course Keith will say _no—are you?_ and go even faster just to prove him wrong.

He isn’t sure where their rivalry came from, because Keith hadn’t really spoken to him very much back at the Garrison? But it’s. Well, it’s not _nice_ —it’s irritating and impulsive and actually very stress reliving to be able to yell without being shut down which is probably not a healthy way to look at it? And very not stress reliving when everything is Too Much and Lance is still there poking and prodding at him, but.

It’s not necessarily mean-spirited, he doesn't think? Lance always bounces back quickly enough, even if Keith simmers in it for a while (the “whatever, dropout,” comment had buried itself under his skin and hit a little too hard, so if he throws a little too much into his paper airplane barb, well. That’s his own business.) He could be reading all of it wrong, of course, but he doesn’t think he is, this time. Or at least hopes not, because they probably can’t form that big robot and save the universe if one of the other Paladins actually hates him.

He doesn’t know Hunk very well. He thinks he probably could, if he tried. Hunk seems like a pretty open kind of guy, probably. He thinks he probably could know him, if he wanted to. 

He doesn’t know if he wants to, is the thing? He’s gotten this far without getting to know everyone he has to work with, and it’s been way easier and safer this way. They have to be able to form Voltron, though, so maybe he’ll have to get to know all of them, sooner or later. He just isn’t sure if _they_ want to get to know _him_.

Pidge talks like life is a puzzle for her to figure out. She modifies the pods and the room doors and so many other aspects of the old old castle like it’s second nature. She’s the spitting image of what Keith remembers of her brother—he’d seen him hanging around or talking with Shiro, what seems like ages ago. 

She asks him if he wants her to do anything special with his room, a few weeks after their first and then second Voltron Formation. 

“I’ve already made Hunk’s a little warmer, put in a little more light; Lance has a radio and a _lock_ now, for god knows what,” she makes a face, shifting her tablet from one hand to the other, and then looks up at him expectantly. 

“Uh,” he starts, and thinks, wondering if there’s a catch that will come after this, “Well, a lock could be…nice.” he admits. He probably sounds paranoid—or gross, taking Lance’s obvious reasons into account—but he’s always slept better with a lock on his door. 

Either way, Pidge just nods absently, typing something out, “Anything else?” 

Keith shrugs, “Is there a way to watch movies?”

“On a tablet or on the wall?” she asks, interest peaked.

“Wall, I guess. Or the ceiling,” he says, and she grins that little grin of hers, adjusting her glasses the way he used to see Matt do.

“I think the way you think,” she says, “Yeah, that’ll be a piece a’ cake. Any movie you want in particular?”

Keith opens his mouth to say _no, not really, he’s sure he can figure something out,_ but then he thinks about Shiro and the sounds he makes through the walls at night and says, “Maybe a few of the Star Wars movies? Not the prequels.”

 

Later, Pidge is talking about leaving, talking about going off to find her brother and father on her own. She’s planning on leaving the fate of the universe to someone else, planning to choose the lives of two people over the rest of the universe?? 

And it’s. It’s kind of selfish, is what it is, but then Hunk is saying “well yeah, of course I wanna go home” and Keith tries to understand, is trying to understand.

“Everyone in the universe has families,” he’s saying, but that’s not true, really, _he_ doesn’t, but a lot of people do and Pidge is willing to give all of them up for the sake of her own. 

Maybe that’s what families do, he thinks vaguely, maybe they’re supposed to sacrifice the world for one another, maybe they’re supposed to go to the ends of the stars to find each other again. Maybe that’s what families are supposed to do, and Pidge is a part of a family, but they’re part of something bigger now, aren’t they? They have responsibilities now, don’t they? Aren’t they supposed to be some kind of weird little family unit, too? 

It doesn’t feel like it, though, everyone with their own agendas and own little lives even while they’re all sharing one big castle. It doesn’t feel like what Keith thinks a weird little family unit should probably feel like. He isn’t expecting it to. But if you make this kind of commitment you can’t just back out of it like this, everyone always gives up so easily and he doesn’t understand why?? 

And then Shiro is saying “Keith,” in that voice of his, and telling Pidge she has a right to leave if she wants to—and she does, Keith knows that, but he just. Doesn’t understand why. 

Everyone is the universe has a family. You can’t prioritize if you want to save everyone—if you prioritize you’ll never save everyone. 

He doesn’t want to be an asshole and he should probably lay off, but everything has just come together, and now it’s falling apart. 

(He wonders who he would leave Voltron for, if he had to. He thinks about the stars and rooftops and know he already knows.) 

Everything goes to shit right after that. 

He’s locked outside the castle while who knows what is going on inside, and it’s a whole night of panic and movement and fighting and they all come out on top, somehow, and Pidge comes back, and she says that she’s staying. 

Keith is tired and drained and doesn’t know why she changed her mind, but he’s. Relived. 

(Later, later, he finds her in the lab at an ungodly hour of the morning, and tries to do something like apologize. 

“I didn’t mean to be so—aggressive, I guess,” he says, choppy and awkward, “Or insensitive. So. I’m sorry about that.”

She looks at him, tilts her head a little, and says, “It’s okay. I get it. I guess I _was_ being kinda selfish. It’s just—I just really miss them, y’know?”

She sounds very young, sounds the way she looks. Keith thinks about living in a shack in the dessert and waiting for a dead man to come back. 

“Yeah,” he says, “I know.” and then, “If anyone can find them, it’s you.” because it’s the truth, and Pidge is looking very small and kind of fragile and he’s never been good with fragile things—he’s too rough around the edges by now.

She smiles at him, wipes her eyes a little. “Yeah, I know,” and there she is.)

 

There’s only so many times he can walk by Shiro’s door at night and hear nightmares before he gives in. 

It’s the middle of the night on some day of the week that he isn’t sure of, and he’s standing outside Shiro’s door with his fist up, ready to knock. He hesitates, because. Well, he’s barely had time to talk to Shiro since they first blasted off, let alone time to figure out what exactly he remembers—not that there was really anything to remember about Keith exactly.

Maybe Keith hopes he remembers sitting on the roof and wondering about how far the universe extended, hopes he remembers training on Friday nights and talking about the stars afterwards. He’s not sure exactly what he hopes Shiro remembers, but he thinks that if Shiro did, he would have maybe approached him by now? But maybe not—everything’s been moving so quickly lately. Keith’s used to sudden change, but this has been a little extreme, even for him. Especially for him. 

Especially for Shiro, too, probably. Shiro is different, now. His hair is different, that stupid tuft of hair stark white, and he looks older now, looks so tired so much of the time, and he’s built a little broader now, too. He’s been through some shit, worse than anything Keith’s been through himself, from what Shiro’s revealed of it. 

He doesn’t know if Shiro even wants to talk to him, especially after the shit he’s been through. Keith understand, vaguely, that it might be hard talking to someone he knew before, someone who has a different standard set or something. But honestly, Keith doesn’t really have a standard?? Whatever standard he had was crushed that day on the bench in the courtyard. Shiro is Shiro, and that’ll never change.

He knocks on the door. 

There’s a beat, two, and the door slides open. He steps inside; Shiro is halfway off the bed, like he’s about to try and make himself presentable. When he sees it’s Keith, though, he slumps back onto the mattress. It makes something inside Keith warm—he doesn’t feel like he has to act put together around him, just like he used to. Shiro is Shiro. 

“Hey,” Shiro says after a moment, “What’s up? Is something going on?”

Keith shakes his head, “I just,” he pauses, “well, I heard you outside. It sounded pretty rough.”

Shiro just shrugs at that, “I’m fine,” he lies. 

“No, you’re not,” Keith says, because he’s blunt and he’s honest and that’s not going to change. Shiro is Shiro and Keith is Keith, even if they’re light years away from Earth and the Garrison. 

Shiro winces, “Really,” he start, but Keith shakes his head.

“You’re not fine. You don’t have to be fine—I mean, you went through some shit.”

“I don’t even remember a lot of it,” Shiro defends weakly, “It’s coming back in flashes. In dreams.”

Keith hums vaguely, takes a step forward in silent question. Shiro nods, gestures to the bed, and Keith sits down carefully, a foot or two away from Shiro. 

“Do you,” Keith pauses, doesn’t know if he wants to ask this question, but asks it anyways, “do you remember, like, before? Before all this?”

Shiro’s silent for a long moment, “Some of it,” he says slowly, and Keith’s heart sinks, “We—we were friends, right? We knew each other?” 

“Yeah,” Keith says, maybe a little too eagerly, “Something like that. You were supposed to mentor me. I was kind of a pain about it.”

Shiro smiles vaguely. Doesn’t add onto it. Keith doesn’t know if it’s because he remembers or doesn’t remember. 

“I thought about you a lot,” he says suddenly, startling Keith out of his contemplation; he blinks at him, “in the arena,” Shiro elaborates, voice far away like he’s remembering something, “I remember thinking about you right before a fight, or in my cell, sometimes. I would think ‘what would Keith do right now?’ And the answer was always ‘fight’. Because you’ve always fought, right? It’s how you’ve gotten this far.” 

Keith is at a loss for a moment. Shiro turns to look at him, something like desperation in his eyes, like he needs Keith to tell him he’s remembering right. 

Keith makes himself nod, “Yeah,” he says, “It’s one of this things I do best, I guess.” 

“The first time we sparred, I had you in a hold with your arms behind your back,” there’s that voice again, that far away, vaguely awed tone, “I thought you’d have to tap out, but you,” he huffs a laugh that make Keith’s heart skip a beat, “you managed to get my legs out from under me with your foot, almost twisted your own arm. I asked you why you tried so hard for such a little victory—it wasn’t that important. You said,” here, he pauses, face softening, “you said ‘give up once, and you’ll keep on doing it,’ like it was the most obvious thing in the world.” 

Keith remembers the day he’s talking about, the first Friday in a long line of Fridays. The way Shiro’s telling it is so different from what Keith remembers, like it was a moment that meant something and not just Keith getting vaguely defensive. 

It makes him hurt a little. 

He doesn’t know what to say to that, what to do with the look on Shiro’s face. 

They sit in silence for a few moments, before Keith clears his throat and says, “I found a way to watch Star Wars,” with zero tact.

Shiro raises an eyebrow.

“In my room,” Keith specifies, “Pidge set up a little projector thing on my wall. And I have Star Wars. I thought—y’know, they’re your favorite, and maybe it would help you focus on something else or something.”

“Not the prequels, right?” Shiro asks carefully, and Keith almost laughs. Almost.

“Of course not.” he says, and Shiro smiles. 

“That would be… nice.” he admits.

 

Keith can’t sleep. 

They whole Castle Incident has left him paranoid and restless. No matter how much Coran insists that everything is back to normal, he can’t quite bring himself to practice against the training robot again just yet.

So that leaves him wandering the castle during the night, when he gets to antsy to lay still any longer. 

One night, he wanders into the kitchen, vaguely hungry but not really sure how to get himself some food, and he runs into Hunk, who apparently is headed to the kitchen at the exact same time.

“Oh, hey, Keith,” he says, sounding way too awake, “What’re you doing up?”

Keith shrugs self-consciously, “Couldn’t sleep.”

“Yeah, me either,” Hunk says, stepping inside, “I’ve been fiddling with Pidge’s equipment—wanna make sure the castle really is working right.”

Keith breathes a sigh of relief, “I’m glad I’m not the only one still worried about that.”

Hunk smiles vaguely, “It was crazy, dude. I’ve seen horror movies about computers having minds of their own, and I am not a fan. Like, did you ever see that X-Files episode?”

Keith raises an eyebrow, “The one about that computer that controlled that elevator or something? One of the very first episodes, right?” 

Hunk nods enthusiastically, twisting one of the knobs Keith has no clue what to do with. “Yeah, that one. It messed me up when I was little—didn’t touch my computer for days.”

Surprisingly, Keith smiles softly. This is easy, talking to Hunk, easier than trying to have a civilized conversation with Lance, at least.

“That was me with E.T. I checked my closet for weeks.”

Hunk laughs quietly. They fall into an easy silence. 

Somehow, they keep talking, quietly and in short bursts, as Hunk gets the food goo machine working and Keith searches for bowls. 

He learns that Hunk doesn’t have any siblings, but has a dog he loves and misses with all his heart, that he likes romance movies but only the Extra Cheesy kind, that he was afraid he wouldn’t make it into the Garrison and afraid he wasn’t cut out to be a Paladin and afraid Yellow wouldn't take him as her Paladin. He finds out that Hunks cooks when he’s stressed, learned from his mom, is trying to find away to make this goo stuff actually taste like something. 

Hunk asks him questions, too. Not too probing but not too impersonal either. Against his better judgment, Keith answers them freely. Maybe it’s because everyone else is asleep, because no one will overhear, this is their own little conversation that probably won’t leave this room if they don’t want it to. Probably it’s because Hunk puts him at ease, with his easy talk and his gentle way of handling things. 

He tells Hunk about the foster system, about the first time he stepped into the Garrison simulator, about how he’s been a part of so many families but never really been a _part_ of them. Slowly, he tells him about the pull, about the empty space above his chest, about the way Shiro’s smile could almost fill it up, about how sometimes the light is too bright and the sound is too loud and everything is Too Much.

“Oh, yeah, that happens to me too,” Hunk says offhand, and Keith blinks.

“It’s normal?” He asks, almost frantically.

“Well I mean, it’s probably not really a ’ it happens to everyone thing’, but,” Hunk shrugs, “it’s like, sensory overload or something. There’s too much going on around you and it becomes too much for you to process.”

Keith feels a little breathless, because that’s exactly it, he’s never been able to describe it right but that’s it—and it has a name, and he’s not some kind of anomaly, there’s nothing wrong with him there.

“Hey, are you alright?” Hunk asks when he’s been silent for too long.

“I just,” Keith looks up at Hunk, wide eyed and so relived?? “I always thought there was something wrong with me. No one else ever got in trouble for asking the teacher to talk quieter.”

Hunk huffs a laugh at that, a quiet one, and gives him this little reassuring smile, “Nah, there’s nothing wrong with you. It’s actually kinda nice knowing there’s someone else on the team I can talk to about it.” A moment later he adds, “Do you wanna, like, have some kinda signal for it? Like if you or I gets overwhelmed, the other one can like…make an excuse and get them out, or…” he trails off awkwardly when Keith just looks at him, “I mean, that’s probably kinda weird right? We don’t have to–”

“No, no,” Keith cuts in hurriedly, “no, its—that’s actually a really good idea. I’ve just never–you would do that?” He settles on, because he doesn’t know how to explain how much this suddenly means to him??

“Of course, man,” Hunk grins, patting him on the shoulder, “It’s no problem. So how about like, ‘yellow lion’ or something?”

“People say that all the time, though, it’s too frequent.”

“Well…what’s your favorite movie?”

“That’s a big question, man.”

“Okay, top five and we’ll go from there,”

“But what if I’m just talking about my favorite movies sometime?”

“Ah, you’re right.”

“It should be a word we like, never use.”

“Like what, vanilla candle?”

“Why is that the first thing you thought of?” 

They go on like that, and Keith doesn’t feel uncomfortable once.

 

He’s gotten used to not knowing what day of the week it is, so he’s not sure what day of the week it is but he’s asleep in Shiro’s room, fell asleep to a shitty horror movie, sheets bunched loosely around his legs.

One moment he’s dreaming and the next moment he can’t breathe. 

He gasps awake to something hard and heavy pressed down around his neck, digging into his windpipe in a way that makes him choke. He claws at the—hand? the cold cold prosthetic hand around his neck on instinct, eyes still blurry from sleep. 

He blinks rapidly, and looks up to see Shiro looking down at him. No, not at him, _through_ him, seeing something else entirely, probably—Keith doesn’t have time to hypothesize about it with the lack of oxygen getting to his brain and the panic settling in.

“Shiro,” he chokes out, sounding much more terrified than he meant to; he tries to twists his legs to throw Shiro off of him, but the hand _tightens_ and Keith can feel memories of alcohol in the air and _you better fuckin’ apologize_ because he’d broken something and refused to say sorry and then he’s clawing more rapidly, “Shi—Shiro, _please_ ,” he coughs, kicking weakly, “ _Please_.” 

He sees recognition snap forward in Shiro’s eyes like he flicked a switch though the blackspots in his vision.

He’s off Keith in an instant, recoiling like he’d stuck his hand in a flame. Air floods his lungs all at once and he’s gasping, coughing, curling in on himself to keep it there. He manages to push himself up so that he’s sitting, hunched over as he coughs, ears ringing and ringing and he can still smell alcohol. 

He catches his breath eventually, Shiro going _I’m sorry, god I am so sorry, Keith, Jesus Christ, I’m sorry I don’t know what happened I’m so sorry,_ the whole time, his left hand hovering over his back and his right held far far away from his body like he’s afraid of it.

“I’m sorry,” he says again, stilling when Keith finally lifts his head, “God, Keith, I’m—“

“Shiro—Shiro, hey,” he winces at how wrecked his voice sounds, “it’s fine, I’m fine.”

“It’s not— _fine_ ,” Shiro voice breaks on the word; Keith doesn’t know if he’s ever heard his voice sound like that, “I almost—god, I tried to _kill_ you, Keith, I almost—I—“

“Shiro,” he says again, because he doesn’t wanna hear the broken slide of his voice like glass on glass anymore, can’t hear his voice like that anymore, “I’m fine. Look at me, I’m fine.”

Shiro does look at him, and that was obviously the wrong thing for him to do because his eyes widen in something like horror and then he’s leaning in with a soft, “God, I _hurt_ you—your neck is a mess, Jesus Christ, I’m—“

“If you say you’re sorry again I’m gonna hit you,” Keith warns weakly, wincing when he brings his hand up to feel along his neck—definitely bruised. He doesn’t wanna look in the mirror because he knows what he’s gonna see. 

“I’m—“ Shiro catches himself and closes his mouth, looking down at his hands. He looks far younger than he has in a long time. It probably isn’t easy, Keith thinks, leading a team against a whole race of megalomaniac aliens. No one really _asked_ him if he wanted to, either, but he took the responsibility and did it anyways. Keith doesn’t think he would’ve been able to do that. 

“I hurt you,” Shiro says again, very very quietly.

“You didn’t mean to, right?” Keith asks after a moment, “You didn’t want to hurt me?”

“No, of course not,” he says frantically, “I’d never want to hurt you, Keith.” 

It’s so soft it makes Keith’s heart hurt a little, but he shakes it off and pushes through. He nods, “It wasn’t you, Shiro.”

Shiro shakes his head frantically, pressing a fist against his temple, “But it _was_. It _was_ me, Keith. My time in that arena, it—it did something to me. I did some _horrible_ things in there. I _hurt_ people in there.”

Keith is silent for a long moment, choosing his words carefully. He’s seen Shiro upset, seen him broken up after a nightmare. Even back at the Garrison, he’d seen him stressed out, seen him a little scared of the idea of finally going to a world no one had ever gone before. He’s seen Shiro without his Golden Boy mask on, but he’s never seen him quite like this. He looks like he might start crying if Keith says the wrong thing, if he looks up and sees the bruises that are surely curling around Keith’s neck.

“I’m. I’m sorry you had to through that,” he starts, knows Shiro’s hanging off of every word with the way his hand twitches against his head, “and I know. I know something like that—it changes people. And that’s—well, it’s okay to change, y'know? It’s not always ideal, but it’s okay.”

Shiro looks up then, eyes searching. Keith ignores the urge to look away, tries to keep his gaze steady and his words true.

“The things you had to do to survive—it wasn’t your fault. You had to _survive_ , Shiro.” Keith worries his lip between his teeth, fiddling with the sheets twisted around his hands, “You always told me that where I came from didn’t define what I could be, you remember that?” He doesn’t stop to wait for an answer, because he doesn’t know what he would do if Shiro said no, “So maybe—maybe it _was_ you. Maybe it’s a part of you that you had to create. But it doesn’t _define_ you, Shiro. You’re still you, even if you had to change.”

He grips Shiro’s hand—the Galra hand, the one that was wrapped around his neck ten minutes ago—in his own, holding tight.

“It’s okay, Shiro. I’m fine, you’re fine, and you’re still you.”

Shiro still looks like he might cry, like maybe he’s really going to cry, and Keith wonders if he’s overstepped his boundaries. But then Shiro kinda. Leans forward. Slumps against him, like he’s given up on trying to hold himself together.

Keith startles for a moment, almost pulls back on impulse, but Shiro is shaking and he’s never seen him shake this hard before.

So he takes a breath, and wraps the arm not still clutching his hand tight around him, rubs up and down in small circles like Sister Teresa did sometimes when the emptiness in his chest got to be too much. He misses Sister Teresa sometimes. She was always nice to him where the other Sisters eyed his oddly colored eyes in religious distrust.

Shiro is warm in his arms, warm under his hand. They sit there like a while, Keith’s legs folded awkwardly under him, the soft hum of the castle he used to find unsettlingly but has slowly gotten used to around them. It lulls him into a vaguely half-asleep state, eyes sliding shut as Shiro hand slides up the back of his neck.

He takes a deep breath, shifting his whole body as he does it, “I’m sorry,” he says softly, barely more than a whisper.

“Shiro—” he sighs.

“No, I know,” he huffs something that might have been a laugh if it were light outside, if they were folded in Shiro’s bed back in the Garrison instead, “but I am. I shouldn’t be unloading on you like this.”

Keith snorts, “Shiro, its, y'know,” he shrugs, “its healthy to talk about stuff every once in a while.”

Keith feels Shiro raise an eyebrow against his neck.

“Hunk gives good advice about that stuff, okay,”

Shiro doesn’t say anything to that, but Keith can practically see the tilt of his smile.

“What?” Keith asks quietly, tilting his head down like he’s listening for a secret.

“Nothing,” Shiro answers, tilting his head up the same way, “I’m just glad you’re finally bonding with them more. I know you don’t make friends easy.”

If it were someone else or somewhere else, he would maybe get defensive, even though it is 100% true, but here, in the dark in the night in his room, he just hums in vague agreement. 

“Hunk’s easy to talk to,” he says, “He’s a nice guy.”

“Yeah,” Shiro agrees, “He is.” and that’s it for a while. A comfortable silence. Shiro’s heartbeat is steady and his breathing is even. 

“Thank you,” he says eventually. 

“It’s no problem,” Keith answers, even as a warmth settles deep in his chest and makes itself at home. He hasn’t felt this comfortable in a long while.

“I really am sorry about your neck, though,” he adds, “It’s gonna look like hell.”

Keith just shrugs, “I’ve had worse,” he says, “I’ll be fine.”

Shiro hums a dissatisfied sound, but doesn’t say anything else.

They fall asleep like that, leaning on each other, breathing with one another. Keith’s legs are cramped as hell the next morning, and his neck looks just as bad, but he can’t really bring himself to care.

 

One of their fights doesn’t go very well, because winning streaks can never last very long, especially not in this kind of fight. 

Their fight doesn’t go very well, and because he didn’t react fast enough, Pidge almost got hurt. Almost got blasted out of the goddamn sky. They retreat and they get away and they’re all alive as they stumble out of their lions and into the hanger, but Keith’s blood is still rushing and his heart is still racing and he needs to _do_ something. 

He needs to do something, he ignores the questioning calls from his teammates, doesn’t even bother to take his armor off as he rushes to the training deck because he needs to do something with all the blood running through his veins. 

He thinks he says something, starts up a training sequence before he’s even holding his sword steady.

There could be another battle any minute now—there was last time, and that long night back on arus where Lance got hurt was unexpected too—something like that could happen again so he needs to be ready, he needs to be ready, he needs to be ready.

His hands are shaking and he’s almost out of breath—his arms feel heavy as he dodges and slices and he almost loses his footing and that can’t happen so he needs to do better, go harder, get faster, and then he does lose his footing, tripping over himself just as someone yells “end training sequence!”

He looks up angrily and sees Lance stomping towards him, halfway out of his paladin armor, which is really the last thing he wants to see right now.

“What are you _doing_? Lance snaps.

“What—?” He flinches hard when the asshole actually yanks his bayard out of his hands, “Hey, hold on—“

“I get that you have this insatiable need to be better than everyone,” he’s going on, “but you don’t have to kill yourself over it.”

Keith is tired and anxious and his bayard is gone so how is he going to defend himself if Lance gets too mad at him and his heart is racing like that first time on the staircase and everything is Too Much and he just—snaps.

“I don’t do everything just to _spite_ you, Jesus _Christ._ I don’t wanna be better than everyone—I just need to be _better!_ ”

There must be something in his face or his voice that makes Lance actually shut the hell up for once—or maybe it’s the way he still can’t seem to catch his breath, flinching _again Jesus Christ_ when he feels hands grabbing at the clasps on his suit, pulling the breastplate off with zero tact.

It makes him vulnerable and he still doesn’t have a weapon, but suddenly he can maybe breathe easier, so that’s something.

“I know,” Lance is saying, jarringly soft, “I know you don’t.”

“Don’t try to spite you or don’t need to be better?” Because being an asshole makes it easier to focus on something other than how quickly his blood is flowing through his veins.

“Both,” Lance shrugs, not even snapping back at him, “you can be an asshole, but no one’s an asshole all the time, right? Except for Iverson, probably,”

Keith snorts because Iverson is the last person he wants to think about right now.

“And you don’t,” a pause, warm hands on his shoulders, working at the knots, “you don’t need to be better—I mean, I guess we could all be better, but you don’t have to do it by yourself, y'know? And you don’t have to do it right _now_ , Jesus.”

Keith swallows dryly, “Something’s going to happen,” he says, “I have to be ready if something happens and I wasn’t ready and Pidge almost got hurt so I have to be _ready_ —”

_“Hey,”_ Lance says sharply, cutting him off, “no one’s attacking right now. No one’s going to attack for a while—Allura wormholed us away, there’s nothing out here, okay? Pidge is fine. You gotta rest, man.”

He sounds more serious than Keith has probably ever heard, and that alone is almost enough to surprise him out of his spiral through the sheer _off-_ ness of it.

“But how do you know—?”

“What d’you mean? I know everything, dude.”

Keith almost laughs, because _there he is._ There he is. He’s fine—Lance is fine, Pidge is fine, so maybe Keith is fine, too.

“You’re so full of shit,” he manages, and Lance actually laughs a little.

“There you are,” he says, softly enough that Keith maybe wants to cry a little? Fuck this guy, honestly. 

He settles on closing his eyes and breathing and breathing until his heart stops racing so quickly, until his hands stop shaking so much. Lance doesn’t say anything else, which is weird—Keith would’ve thought this would be a great time to get a jab in that would linger a long time—but also nice. 

Keith’s maybe even a little grateful. He won’t tell Lance that, because he doesn’t know if he can, but sits next to him and breathes and hopes he knows anyways.

(“Did we just have ourselves a _bonding moment?”_ Lance asks later, pulling off bits and pieces of his armor as they walk, because he’s nice sometimes but he’s still an asshole. 

“Depends—you gonna remember it this time?” 

Lance shrugs, “If you want me to. I won’t go around yelling about it like you did last time, though.”

_I won’t tell everyone you almost had a breakdown from a little leftover adrenaline_ , is what he thinks Lance is really saying. Which is. Nice. 

Instead of saying so, Keith frowns, falling back into place easily, “I did not _yell_ about it.”)

 

Allura gets captured and they go to get her even though she’s said herself that would be the worst possible thing they could do. 

When he sees Zarkon going for the Black Lion, when he sees he has an opportunity to do something about it, well. He fights, because that’s what he does. And he fails pretty badly too, because Zarkon is Zarkon and no matter how much shit they talk about him he’s still the guy who’s managed to enslave more than half the universe. 

They get Allura, somehow; they get out, somehow. They’re finally in the clear, somehow, and then they’re not, and they’re flying out of the castle and into different parts of the wormhole that go god knows where. 

Keith hears Lance shout their names, hears Pidge and Hunk yelling, hears Shiro grunting in pain. He’s probably yelling, too, but then he’s plummeting towards some planet and he’s blacking out, so he isn’t really sure. 

 

He wakes up to a ringing in his ears and his he'd splitting in an awful headache. He doesn’t know where he is. Red isn’t responding.

He climbs out of the lion, peers around him, and his helmet tells him that the Black Lion is somewhere close. He’s so relieved he could maybe even cry. 

“Shiro?” he asks, setting off in the direction of the signal, “Shiro, are you there? Shiro?”

It takes a few minutes, but he hears the crack of static and then, “Keith,” all fuzzy, “Keith, are you there?” and his heart lifts. 

“Shiro,” he says, “you made it.” but then Shiro is in danger again—he’s been doing that a lot lately, he should really work on that—and Keith runs faster. 

“Are you okay?” he asks breathlessly.

Shiro, the asshole, actually goes, “It takes more than a glowing alien wound, a fall from the upper atmosphere, and crashing into a hard pan surface, at what I’m guessing is about 25 meters per second squared, to get rid of me.” and then, “How are you?” 

“Not good,” he responds, ignoring the sarcasm, “Red’s busted.” 

His heart is racing as he runs, not as fast as that first time on the stairs but well on it’s way if something else happens.

Something else happens.

A canyon or something, a huge chasm that drops at least fifty feet, if not more. 

His heart is racing, but patience yields focus, he breathes, he says, and hears Shiro’s faint laugh over the coms. 

“That really stuck with you, didn’t it?” he asks softly—the smell of the gym mats, his elbows stinging where he landed on them, hitting the ground in frustration, and patience yields focus, you know, Shiro had said in that way of his that made everything he said sound like a fact.

“Without you,” Keith says, “my life would have been a lot different.”

“Yeah.” he responds weakly, “You wouldn't have crashed a flying lion on an alien planet and be stuck with little hope of rescue. So, you're welcome.”

He hasn’t heard this level of self-deprecation humor from him since finals week back at the Garrison. Keith doesn’t know whether he’s relived to hear this old side of him, or worried that _this_ is what it takes to bring it out of him again.

He doesn’t have time to decide, because the alien creatures have Shiro cornered and Keith’s sword won’t be much against them and Red is so far away now, and so Keith makes a spilt second decision, and sprints over to Black, where she’s sprawled across the rock. 

“I know I’m not Shiro,” he says as steadily as he can, “but he’s in trouble. We need to help him.”

And the Black Lion lets him in. 

 

“Keith,” Shiro says later, weak and slumped against a rock in front of the fire, “if I don’t make it out of here, I want you to lead Voltron.”

What? he thinks, but “Stop talking like that,” is what he says, “You’re gonna make it,” and leaves it at that, because he doesn’t know how Shiro could even suggest something like that. Keith doesn’t want to think about the possibility of Shiro not being there anymore.

 

They meet a Galra resistance fighter who helped Shiro escape. His sword has the exact same handle as his wrapped up knife he keeps in his back pocket and under his pillow.

He pulls it out later, stares into the blade, and thinks.

 

When he finds an opportunity to learn more, to finally finally reach where the pull has been leading him, he accepts automatically, the mission and Shiro’s thoughts on the matter reduced to background noise.

When they tell him he will have to fight for it— _knowledge or death_ , the leader says from behind his mask—well. 

Keith fights, because that’s what he does. 

And he fights hard. He’s good with his knife, he’s had it all his life, but they’re better. Still, he fights. 

He fights until his arms and legs ache, until his shoulder is sliced up and probably bleeding, until his lungs burn and his legs tremble, until he can barely catch his breath as he swings and slices and dodges. His heart races and races, even faster than that first time on the staircase, and the empty space right below his clavicle _howls_ —he’s so close, he’s _so close_ , he’s been empty for so many years and if he can just make it through this door, through this next one, through this next one, he’ll get it, he knows it. 

The doors don’t seem to end and his lungs feel like they’ll collapse soon, so he finds his own way out, slides down the empty shoot and stumbles down the empty hall. His vision blurs, and when it focuses again he is on the floor and Shiro is standing over him.

_Of course he is,_ Keith thinks vaguely. And then: _did I finish? Did I win?_

Shiro tells that him he has, that he’s made it further than anyone the leader has seen, if he just gives up the knife they can go, _just give up the knife, Keith, hand it over, what is it with you and that_ ** _thing?_** and his voice is sharp in a way Keith has never heard it, it bites into him, it leaves him breathless. 

_You know who you are,_ he says, but Keith doesn’t know if he’s ever known who he is, not now, certainly not when he was six and certainly not when he was in that desert and certainly not now. 

_You’re only thinking of yourself, as usual,_ and he’s never heard Shiro talk like that before—he’s heard plenty of people talk like that, but never Shiro, and then _you’ve chosen to be alone,_ but Keith never meant to choose that, he just wants to know, he just _needs_ to _know,_ but then Shiro is walking away and all he can think about is Mission Failure and sitting on the front porch with his ear ringing and the sound of a motorcycle driving away and—

the motorcycle leads him to the dad he doesn’t know anymore, maybe never knew, never thought he’d see again—of course he wants to catch up, of course he wants to listen, of course he wants to wait for his mom to show up, of course he wants to learn about where he comes from, where did he _come from?_

But the world is on fire outside and he’s a Paladin of Voltron now, he’s not six and he’s not thirteen and he can’t wait a week to accept the fact that things will never be the same this time. 

And so he leaves. Because he has to.

And he wakes up to yelling and stone crumbling and Shiro standing above him again. His voice is not biting anymore and he doesn’t tell him to give up the knife—he holds Keith against him and stands like a shield, like he’s ready to fight if he has to. Keith could cry if he had enough energy left to do it. Shiro hasn’t left him alone. 

_Take it,_ Keith says, and holds out the piece of his heart he’s had on him for so long, _I know who I am._

And he really thought he did for a second there, he thought he knew for sure, but then the blade is glowing and transforming and that means _there is Galra blood in his veins_ and it turns out he’s never had a clue who the hell he is. 

He does now. Shiro still doesn’t step away, the blade is solid in his hand, and the empty space above his ribcage is gone. 

He does now.

 

“I don’t think you’re selfish,” Shiro says later, on their way back to the castle where he’s going to lose the trust of everyone he’s just learned to care about.

“What?” Keith asks, shaken out of his thoughts.

Shiro suddenly looks a little embarrassed, “Back there, during the trials—well, I was watching,” Keith freezes, “and I saw—well I saw most of what you saw. And I just want you to know, I don’t think you’re selfish.”

Keith is quiet for a long moment. Focuses on the feeling of the controls under his hands.

“I jeopardized the mission just so I could, I don’t know, chase shadows? I put everyone in danger just so I could find out that I’m—” he bites his tongue to cut himself off.

“You’re what? Part Galra?” Shiro asks bluntly and Keith flinches. “It’s not—”

“Of course it is,” Keith cuts in, “of course it’s a big deal, Shiro. It—this changes everything.”

“Keith,” Shiro starts softly, too softly, but Keith just shakes his head.

“They’re going to hate me, Shiro.” His voice cracks, and he wishes that he could sink right through his chair, that Red would maybe eject him into space right now; he feels exposed, he feels like Shiro could tear him apart if he wanted to, “I’m everything we’re fighting against.”

“ _You_ are not what we’re fighting against,” He says, the same way he used to point out the constellations or help him through his homework, steady and confident, “Where you come from doesn’t define you, remember?”

“This is different,” Keith insists, not caring if he sounds childish.

“It’s not. You’re still you, Keith.” echoing Keith’s words from so many nights ago, and that’s what does it. Red slows to a stop without his command, and holds steady while Keith bends over and buries his head in his hands.

He gets in about two shaky breaths before Shiro is there, crouching on his knees in a way that can’t be comfortable, and his hands are warm on Keith’s back and he goes “you’re still you” again in that too-soft voice and it’s just. It’s A Lot.

He comes from the monsters that ripped Shiro apart and sewed him back together again, that destroyed Allura’s planet, that plunged the whole goddamn galaxy into chaos. Shiro is still here. Shiro is still here.

Light hasn’t been this bright in a long time, the comforting purr of his lion loud loud loud in his ears, and his shoulder has been stinging something horrible for the past few hours, but Shiro’s hands are warm and he’s still here, so. There’s that.

He doesn’t say anything when Keith has to wipe his eyes a few times, doesn’t tell him to pull himself together or get over himself where Keith probably would have, and brushes a strand of hair out of Keith’s eyes when he straightens himself out and grasps the controls again.

He stays by his side when he tells the others, too, when Allura glares and the rest of them just _stare._

He’s there later, too, helps him pull the suit off and pull his clothes on and pulls up the movie they paused halfway through a few nights ago.

Keith lets the sound fade into the background, breathes deep and tries to steady himself, tries to forget about the way everyone looked at him. Goes through the things that he knows.

Shiro’s still here. He hasn’t been thrown into space yet. His dad wasn’t that crazy after all. Red came to help him. The empty space is gone.

“The empty space is gone,” he says, and feels Shiro jump against him at the sound of his voice. He wonders how long he’s been floating.

“What?” He asks, not unkindly.

“The empty space,” he repeats, wonders if Shiro even remembers what the hell he’s talking about, “The pull. I guess I found out why I needed to come up here so bad. It wasn’t the stars. I wanted it to be the stars so badly.”

Shiro is quiet.

Keith knows now. He’s always wanted to know, and now he does.

 

(“You know, Keith was there, too,” Hunk says later, after the Weblum thing, after they get back in one piece. 

It makes something in Keith crack a little, and then mend itself right up. It makes him feel accepted. Allura just glares, and he knows he is not. 

And then, “Hey,” Hunk says later, after the Weblum thing but before their Big Final Battle when Keith stands, a little lost and anxious and determined. 

“Hey,” Keith replies, a little surprised.

Hunk shifts from foot to foot, “Just so you know, uh, those jokes weren’t supposed to be, like, mean or anything,” he gets out in a rush, and then keeps rushing, “And I was being kinda insensitive, especially with that whole ‘I’m always stuck with the Galra missions’ thing, it’s just been kinda weird, y’know? But I mean—you’re still you, and I get that now. You’re definitely funnier than you were before, though, and I’m not sure why that is but it’s great. You should make jokes more often, and, well—I’m sorry, is what I’m trying to say? For reacting the way I did.”

Keith blinks, “Um,” he says eloquently, “thank you,” a little surprised and a lot relived. “It’s fine, though, it was a big thing to suddenly tell everyone, I get it. But. Thanks?” 

Hunk smiles. 

“But hey,” Hunk says a moment later, “does this mean your dad like…did it with an alien?”)

 

(Even later, Allura apologizes, too. 

“Come back to us,” she says, and Keith is so so relieved.)

 

Zarkon has gotten even stronger, but his obsession with the Black Lion is his downfall. 

He almost gets them, though, he really almost gets them bad. 

They get him bad, too. He feels pure power and energy surging through his lion, feels the strength of the rest of the lions and their Paladins, too. He feels unstoppable. 

They _are_ unstoppable. They _win_. Defenders of the universe and all that—they finally live up to that name in a way that will truly make a difference in this war.

 

They run to the Black Lion, Keith in the front, sprinting down the hall. 

 

Shiro is gone. 

 

“Hey,” Pidge says, crawling onto the couch where Keith is sitting, curled up and hurting like he hasn’t hurt in years, puts a small hand on his shoulder, “Hey, don’t worry. They’re out there. We’ll find them again.”

He’s so tired and he’s so afraid, and so he lets Pidge turn him around and put her short arms around his shoulders. She’s so strong. He thought he was strong, but he’s left his heart open and the empty space is back, it’s bigger, it’s pushing the air out of his lungs, expanding up into his throat.

“Yeah?” he asks, voice cracking. When he was six years old, it took him a week to realize his dad wasn’t coming back. His dad had left on purpose. He doesn’t know if Shiro has.

“Yeah.” Pidge says, and he almost believes her. Because that’s what families do, he thinks. They go to the ends of the stars to find each other again. 

And so they will.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> that v last scene was inspired by [this](http://mapurl.tumblr.com/post/156382118623/all-members-of-the-kerberos-mission-are-currently/)
> 
> hmu on [tumblr](http://gaynasas.tumblr.com/) anything to talk abt these kids 
> 
> comments make the sun shine and help me finish my french essay


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